How Never Summer Shredded the Snowboard Industry With Innovation The 15-year-old company was chugging along before its founders chucked long-held conventions and completely reconceived the design of the snowboard.

Tracey Canaday grabs a snowboard from several propped haphazardly against the wall of a large, cluttered office in the headquarters of Never Summer Industries, located in the shadow of the Rockies just a few miles north of downtown Denver. He lays it on a table so the contours at its base are visible. This, Canaday says, "is the most innovative board we've ever built."

The "we" includes Canaday's brother Tim, along with the rest of the 70 employees of snowboard, ski and skateboard creator Never Summer. The board is the 20th anniversary edition, all-mountain freestyle Proto CT--the product of four years of shredding convention and reinventing the design of a snowboard.

Back in January 2008, the Canaday brothers had just returned from a trade show promoting next season's snowboards. But right when they got back, Tim, who heads up Never Summer's R&D, hit on the perfect "rocker and camber" design--combining the traditional convex-shaped (camber) base with a concave (rocker) one--making a board that was easier and more fun to ride. And like two riders laying fresh tracks on a sick first run, they went big. Really big.